Last Friday I got to sit with my five year old as he got his first shot of the Pfizer vaccine. This was a moment of hopefulness for me in the midst of another surge of this pandemic. The vaccine clinic was held at the elementary school gym and after their vaccination the kids were invited to sit at tables with coloring pages and crayons for the fifteen minutes. Coloring pages are the perfect thing for the after-shot release of energy and feeling! What was beautiful to me was the care that the school had put into making this possibility available to families like my own. And the attention to the kid’s experience that was there. It was another one of those moments when you feel the energy of people coming together for good.

This Thanksgiving is once again complicated by the pandemic – another surge threatening plans made when we were hopeful for a very different holiday this year. We can continue to be thankful for all the ways that people continue coming together for good – people here at HHH, people in the community, people around the world – rising to the call to help and care.

And while we cannot be thankful for everything, we can, as Br. David Steindl-Rast reminds us, be thankful in every moment. He invites us into a simple and profound practice he calls, “Stop. Look. Go.” Here are his words:

Most of us — caught up in schedules and deadlines and rushing around, and so the first thing is that we have to stop, because otherwise we are not really coming into this present moment at all, and we can’t even appreciate the opportunity that is given to us, because we rush by, and it rushes by. So stopping is the first thing.

But that doesn’t have to be long. When you are in practice, a split second is enough — “stop.”

And then you look: What is, now, the opportunity of this given moment, only this moment, and the unique opportunity this moment gives? And that is where this beholding comes in.

And if we really see what the opportunity is, we must, of course, not stop there, but we must do something with it: Go. Avail yourself of that opportunity. And if you do that, if you try practicing that at this moment, tonight, we will already be happier people, because it has an immediate feedback of joy.

I always say, not — I don’t speak of the gift, because not for everything that’s given to you can you really be grateful. You can’t be grateful for war in a given situation, or violence or domestic violence or sickness, things like that. There are many things for which you cannot be grateful. But in every moment, you can be grateful.

For instance, the opportunity to learn something from a very difficult experience — what to grow by it, or even to protest, to stand up and take a stand — that is a wonderful gift in a situation in which things are not the way they ought to be. So opportunity is really the key when people ask, “Can you be grateful for everything?” — no, not for everything, but in every moment.

Brother David Steindl-Rast, 2015 interview with Krista Tippett

May you and yours be well and supported today and into this holiday week. And may the blessing of God or all that sustains you, keep you safe, grant you peace and fill you with all that you need, just for today. Amen.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Joel

This week the spiritual care team has revitalized the resources for  use of the memorial quilts. We have replaced missing quilts from each floor and put all the quilts in a labeled box with a candle and instructions:

Instructions for Memory Quilts:

• Lay the quilt on the bed after the resident’s passing.

• If you wish you can put the candle (included in kit) on the tray and light.

• There is a prayer in the kit you can say if it is helpful. You can also take three deep breathes and send heartfelt wishes to the deceased and their families and friends.

• When finished. Put the quilt and the candle back in the box and store in the Medical Room.

This ritual of laying a quilt on the deceased empty bed is a way for us to honor the passing of those in our care. Whether we know the resident for a few days or many years it is sad when we witness the loss of life. It can leave us feeling empty as we move on to the next task in our work life. Taking the time to perform this simple ritual helps us honor that feeling of loss and fills the space with comradery as we all bear witness to those in our community that pass on.

After the appropriate amount of time. Taking the quilt off the bed and packing it away is the visible manifestation of life moving forward. We all move on, new people populate the room and we the staff learn to care for them with the same care and concern as the ones who have lived there before. This is one of the mystery of life and death which we are so fortunate to bear witness too.

I don’t know if you have seen the Disney movie “Coco”… what a great film. It is about the celebration of Day of the Dead, an important celebration long celebrated in Mexico. The story follows a 12-year-old boy named Miguel who is accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead, where he seeks the help of his deceased musician great-great-grandfather to return him to his family among the living and to reverse his family’s ban on music. It is a marvelous reflection on the intertwining of ancestors stories, the ways families live out brokenness and healing and the ways that we can stay connected to our ancestry.

The following poem is from the Celtic tradition but it echoes the same essence of using the thin space of this time to open to those who are gone and yet still with us and how we might rediscover the power of their presence in our lives.

Happy Halloween, All Soul’s and All Saints Day!
May you be the open light that you are seeking and may others be touched by your light this week.

Samhain
BY ANNIE FINCH
(The Celtic Halloween)

In the season leaves should love,
since it gives them leave to move
through the wind, towards the ground
they were watching while they hung,
legend says there is a seam
stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil
earth from the sky in one last pale
wave, as autumn dies to bring
winter back, and then the spring,
we who die ourselves can peel
back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.
Tonight at last I feel it shake.
I feel the nights stretching away
thousands long behind the days
till they reach the darkness where
all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch
move with me, and when I brush
my own mind across another,
I am with my mother’s mother.
Sure as footsteps in my waiting
self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,
intimate, a waiting bounty.
“Carry me.” She leaves this trail
through a shudder of the veil,
and leaves, like amber where she stays,
a gift for her perpetual gaze.

Annie Finch, “Samhain” from Eve, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. Copyright © 1997 by Annie Finch. Reprinted by permission of the author.